Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
| Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Stellar Stone LLC |
| Publisher(s) | Activision (2003) GameMill Publishing (2004) |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Release | November 20, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Racing |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a racing game released for PC by Stellar Stone LLC in 2003. The game received essentially universal negative reviews, with many critics referring to it as the worst video game of all time.
Gameplay
The box of Big Rigs states that the player may "[r]ace trucks across the country, with cops chasing [him or her]." GameSpot considered this description of the game to be nothing more than "terrible, horrible lies" [1] since there are no cops in the game. Additionally, the "computer-controlled" opponent vehicle has no AI and never moves from the starting position. The player simply drives the truck through the checkpoints and to the finish at his or her leisure in order to achieve victory.
There are no obstacles for the player to negotiate in Big Rigs, as the truck may freely be driven on and off roads without any loss of traction, straight up hills, through structures, and even out of the map's boundaries. The truck falls through bridges as if they do not even exist. In addition, when the player's truck is put into reverse, it has no terminal velocity; as the reverse key is held, the truck will accelerate indefinitely. It is even possible, after several minutes of acceleration in this manner, for the speedometer to reach many thousands of times the speed of light. However, as soon as the reverse key is released, it will halt instantly.
Upon completion of the race, the player is presented with a large, on-screen trophy cup overlaid with the text "YOU'RE WINNER!" Due to a developer oversight, the game occasionally fails to distinguish between whether the player is starting or finishing the race when they pass through the starting checkpoint, and so this screen may appear to end the race before it even begins. In addition, one of the game's five maps causes the game to crash altogether when accessed. [2]
Stellar Stone released a patch that fixes some of the game's flaws. With the patch, the opponent does participate in the race, but stops before it reaches the finish line. The fifth map that caused the game to crash when selected was also fixed. However, the patch simply replaced the broken track with a mirror image of the first track, without changing the corresponding preview image or name.
Despite all these issues, Big Rigs managed to be a commercial success. According to GameSpot, Big Rigs sold well over 200,000 units GameSpot's award for Worst Game of 2004 states that Big Rigs outsold three of the five games in the category; the criteria for that award is that each game sold fewer than 200,000 units in North America.
Reception
Big Rigs was subject to a great number of negative reviews. Thunderbolt Games stated, "I wish I could think of some redeeming factors for the game, but there simply aren't any" and gave the game a score of 1/10. [3] It was also featured on the X-Play "Games You Should Never Buy" segment. Morgan Webb, the host, described Big Rigs as "the worst game ever made." [4] Netjak rewrote the code of their site to allow the game to receive a score of 0.0.[5]
Alex Navarro of GameSpot declared that Big Rigs is "so astoundingly bad that it manages to transcend nearly every boundary put forth by some of gaming's absolute worst of the worst and easily makes it into that dubiously extraordinary category of being one of the most atrocious games ever published."[2] In the special "frightfully bad games" video, Navarro stated, "This game received the lowest score in the history of Gamespot, a 1.0. And by lowest, I mean it can't go any lower. We don't hand out zeros, but maybe we should have for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing."
Big Rigs was also given GameSpot's dubious award of "Flat-out Worst Game" award in 2004, despite the fact that the game was actually released in 2003. They said that they would use the "YOU'RE WINNER!" trophy as a symbol for the 'Flat-Out Worst Game' award but by 2005, a more generic logo was used.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b "Flat-Out Worst Game". GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004. GameSpot.
- ^ a b Narvarro, Alex. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing for PC Review. GameSpot. January 14, 2004.
- ^ Wadleigh, Matt. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review - PC. Thunderbolt Games. March 22, 2004.
- ^ Satterfield, Shane. "Games You Should Never Buy". X-Play (G4). March 23, 2004.
- ^ "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing review". Netjak.
External links
- Stellar Stone LLC
- Stellar Stone LLC Support Page Official patch download for the game
- Template:GameFAQs
Reviews